Because I Was Not Familiar with Many of Atlanta's Native Plants When We Moved Here Thirty-Two

A Walk Through the Calendar Year Linda Fraser’s Botanical Illustrations

Because I was not familiar with many of Atlanta's native plants when we moved here thirty-two years ago, I started to collect a herbarium (dried plants) of each plant on our property. I soon had boxes and boxes of twigs, leaves, notes, etc... and realized that the best way for me, an artist, to study the plants and learn to recognize them was to draw them. I now have over a hundred paintings that travel as the educational exhibit, A Walk through the Calendar Year. As plants appear in my neighborhood, I keep a record of first bloom and last bloom, and the location. This is called a phenology. Whenever I have an opportunity to paint, I go to my records to learn where there is a plant ready to be painted. A flowering plant may be painted in the spring and then later in the year when it has fruit. There are insects, etc.. hiding in most of the paintings. It can be like "Where's Waldo?”

A botanical illustration should answer every question someone might have about that plant. Therefore, the first priority is to learn everything you can about your plant from respected books and experts. Then you can select a specimen that is the best typical example. That spectacular, interesting bloom that is the exception to the rule won't serve your purpose of a botanical illustration. An early mistake I made was the selection of the most interesting and colorful cluster of fruits of Jack in the Pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum, that I could find. The berries start out green but ripen to a bright red. I chose to paint a cluster that included green and orange immature berries the same size as the red ones. After painting them, I stood back and realized they looked like a bunch of M & M candies. I changed my painting to illustrate a cluster one would be more likely to find, a bright red cluster with insignificant immature berries.

Plants don't sit still! Outdoors, blossoms may follow the sun's tour across the sky; winds can blow your blossom apart; or they simply wilt and die.

I prefer to dig smaller plants and put them in a pot. I draw and paint them indoors where the light is stationary and we are all comfortable. My Pink Lady's-slipper, (Cypripedium acaule), continued to bloom in the pot for several years afterwards, but getting smaller each year. I eventually put it back in the ground and lost it.

Draw blossoms first because leaves and twigs will last longer than flowers. I try to have an understudy standing by in case I lose my original subject.

The mechanics of posing your plant can be hilarious. Vines may have to be hung from a chandelier. The base of a horizontal branch may be barely submerged in a flat pan of water which is perched on top of a tower of boxes, while the tip of the branch is supported by anything else you can find. Whatever works! All of this is not only to provide a pleasing composition, but to show all the information needed to identify the plant. Are the leaves opposite or alternate? How does the top of the leaf differ from the underside? The pattern of the veins, the shape of the stem (square or round), and the surface textures (smooth, fuzzy, etc.) of all parts of the plant should be illustrated. Of course color and size should be accurate.

I only work from live specimens. And that is how I come across many of my insects. As I was painting the Partridge-pea (Cassia fasciculata), I noticed a green caterpillar and a yellow one, each resembling the developing seedpods. My mission is to report what I see so I put them in my painting as I found them. Years later, in a lecture, I heard that Cloudless Sulphur caterpillars are variable in color and habit- the yellow ones feed on flowers, the dark ones feed on stems. I could hardly wait to check my painting and see if that's the way I painted them. It is. There is no substitution for personal observation. Botanical artists throughout the centuries have included insects and other critters that are consistently found with the plant they are illustrating. Because the Cloudless Sulphur butterfly is always found with the Partridge-pea flowers, which it resembles

1 A Walk Through the Calendar Year Linda Fraser’s Botanical Illustrations

by the way, I knew I should include the butterfly in my painting. But, when I put one in a big jar to paint his portrait, he wouldn't sit still. He kept trying to fly through the glass. As I didn't yet have the heart to sacrifice a little life for the sake of art or science, I let him go and, instead, painted the red wasp which is also always found on the plant. I had no qualms about killing a wasp (I put him in the freezer). Later I learned about John Abbot (1751-ca.1840) who arrived in Georgia in February, 1776, and spent sixty years studying and illustrating southeastern butterflies and other insects and the plants on which they were found. His collected specimens were displayed in major natural history collections of Europe. When I saw his illustration of Partridge-pea, I was so glad I had not put the Cloudless Sulphur in my painting- it would have looked like I had copied him. But how wonderful it is that, for at least two hundred years, that plant and that butterfly have worked and survived together. (We can assume that Abbot did kill his butterfly to paint it.)

I try to include other plants that I find blooming on that particular day, side by side with my subject, in that particular environment. A plant that enjoys a dry, sunny location would not be next to one that requires a lot of moisture. I often include ground clutter of fallen leaves, faded flowers, or seed pods in that spot, as added information about the subject; the kind of soil, moisture, and PH the plant prefers will be related to the trees and shrubs above it.

With all these considerations, the final question is, " Is this an attractive painting?". At the New York Historical Society, I learned that Audubon would often draw and erase, and draw and erase until he erased right through the paper. Then he would patch it up with a torn piece of paper and continue to draw until he got it just right. I have not had to do that, but I did, one time, peel off a little mushroom I had regretted including in a painting. It had spoiled the balance of the composition and now is in my journal.

I hope my illustrations of southeastern native plants will promote interest and appreciation of their excellent qualities, sometimes taken for granted.